For Bee Vang, the neat bundles of cilantro and stacks of red radishes under her tent at the Wednesday farmers' market mean more than just some cash at the end of the season.
The vegetables, grown on a small plot in Mountain View, are a symbol of the way she and a handful of other refugees are making their way in Anchorage.
Vang, 37, is part of a small commercial garden program, run by Catholic Social Services Refugee Assistance and Immigration Services, that teaches refugees--many of them Hmong -- who bring gardening skills from their home countries to grow and sell vegetables in Alaska. This is the first summer for the program.
"The skills refugees have are so hard to translate into the work force," said Tara Dupper, who oversees the program. "They have a lot of (gardening) knowledge they brought with them from Thailand and Laos."
Many in Anchorage's growing Hmong community spent years working to survive in crowded, muddy camps in Thailand, where diseases carried children to their deaths and education was a luxury. They hauled water and depended on food aid. Even a patch of earth for a tiny garden couldn't always be found.
The move to the U.S. represents a new life for them, but refugee women especially lack the language and other skills needed to enter the work force, and often bear the responsibility of many children. Gardening, a talent passed through generations of clans people in the mountains of Laos, comes naturally.
In Anchorage, the homes of some Hmong families are ringed with cultivated plots, where mothers and grandmothers nurture greens to supplement the household diet.
The gardening program, sponsored by a one-year grant, started with 12 students, who studied Alaska gardening and marketing from February to May. The city donated a quarter-acre plot in McPhee Park in Mountain View, and Evergreen Nursery donated work and materials to prepare it for planting. The Cooperative Extension Service gave advice. Spouses and children helped to till the ground and plant the seeds.
The garden is now in full production behind a fence off McPhee Avenue. On a recent morning the sun warmed patches of potatoes, greens, sunflowers, peas and radishes. Vang, her husband, Yang Pao Lee, and Pa Vang, another program participant, thinned bushy greens.
"My favorite part is when I see everything growing," said Lee, through an interpreter. "It makes me want to come every day and water it."
Now about half the students have found work that takes them away from the garden, but the other half have started to harvest and sell at Wednesday and Saturday markets in a donated market stall. They chose the name "Fresh International Gardens" for their business.
At the Wednesday market in the Northway Mall parking lot, Dupper watched the refugee gardeners overcome shyness and learn to make change.
"When I first met (Vang), she was so shy. Just over the course of three markets, she's much more extroverted," Dupper said.
Alaska, which is second only to Hawaii among states for the percentage of immigrants born in Asia, has seen rapid growth among the Hmong. There were only 300 in 2000 but as many as 2,000 live in Anchorage now, according to community estimates.
Among Asian immigrant groups here, Hmong are some of the most impoverished. In 2000, almost every Hmong person in the city was living below the poverty level, according to census estimates. Only 13 of 203 people over 25 had a bachelor's degree. Lack of English skills limit many to lower-paying service jobs.
The garden program fills a niche for women, who are often slower than men to enter the work force. It offers flexible hours, a chance to practice English and a little pay-out at the end of the season. But the future of the program is uncertain at the moment, requiring another grant or a plan to become self-sustaining, Dupper said.
Bill Webb, manager for the markets, hopes the refugee farmers will be back next year. He'd like to see them get more land and eventually become independent farmers.
"I'm all for anything that shows people how to go to work," he said. "The state is desperately short of farmers. We just don't have enough produce."
Back at the garden, Vang stooped over a patch of tiny cilantro plants, calling her husband to look at their progress.
"If I was to be working, I don't understand the language," she said, through an interpreter. "This is something I'm used to and I know."
Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.
